1. Field
The present invention relates generally to wireless communication systems, and more specifically to providing updated messaging information to a wireless mobile device.
2. Description of Related Art.
Wireless communication devices are widely used, and have become an essential aspect of modern life. Wireless communication devices such as pagers, mobile phones, text pagers, PDA's (personal data assistants) are used for work, for personal activities, and as a way to keep in contact with family and friends. Often, these devices are used to enable voice communications. Increasingly, however, these devices are used to send brief messages without initiating a voice communication. In this way, information may be shared between users with less interruption and less distraction to others. Further, much communication may be completed in one-way transmissions, so the sending of a message can be very efficient. These messages have typically been limited to text messages, but are becoming more complex, with longer text capabilities, and the ability to support audio, image, graphical, and video messages.
One popular and widely used messaging system is the “Short Message Service”, or SMS. SMS is a standard incorporated in many networks, devices, and applications to support sending and receiving messages. The SMS system provides a means by which short messages can be sent from one wireless mobile device to another device. Typically, such messages are textual and limited in length, for example to 160 alphanumeric characters. Such short messages are desirably used for simple communications, such as receiving stock market quotes, abbreviated e-mail, bank account balances, short commercial transactions, traffic conditions, and other such short messages. It will be appreciated that SMS may be provided on various communication platforms. For example, SMS may apply to GSM network systems, CDMA network systems, WCDMA network systems, and other industry standard systems. It will also be appreciated that certain extensions are in use or contemplated for the SMS systems. For example, SMS may extend to allow audio, image, or video data to also be transmitted and received. Also, the length and complexity of messages may be adjusted according to technical capability of mobile devices and network infrastructure.
In order for a computing device to send and receive SMS messages, it must be provided with the capability to operate on a wireless network. Often, a radio frequency (RF) card is inserted into the computing device, and associated operating software used to establish communication between the computing device and the network. For example, RF cards may be constructed to be inserted into PDAs, laptop computers, bar code scanners, or other computing devices. In order to initiate an SMS message, the originating computing device must know the address of the destination device. This address is typically the access number for the destination's RF card, which may be phone number or other network identifier. Since a user typically communicates with a number of other users, the SMS addresses are locally stored in a contact list file. In this way, the computing device is able to readily address and originate messages to known destinations.
However, may computer users have access to multiple computing devices. It is not uncommon for a user to have multiple laptop computers and PDAs, or to use different computing devices at different times. Each of these devices maintains its own SMS contact list, each of which contains only the destination addresses used from that particular device. Accordingly, when using a new computing device or when changing devices, it is often necessary to manually locate destination addresses and to populate the new device's contact list.